There will be no extension of SIM card registration again - Ursula

According to the Minister, Ghanaians and everyone who is yet to register their SIM cards should take opportunity of the ongoing process which will end on July 31, 2022.

She said this at a forum by the National Communications Authority (NCA) in Kumasi.

“I therefore take this opportunity to urge all those who’ve not registered their SIM cards to do so as the deadline of 31st July, 2022 will not be extended,” she said.

She also stated that the exercise will ultimately help build a credible and safe SIM Card database in Ghana.

“Most people access their internet through their mobile devices. We must make sure that they do so safely. We must make it difficult for the criminals who hack our systems and defraud us through multiple online channels to operate, and this SIM registration exercise is one of the steps the government is taking in that regard. Essentially this stresses the point that this exercise will enable the establishment of a subscriber database with integrity to keep the consumers safe from scams and fraud,” she noted.

The re-registration of SIM cards originally began on October 1, 2021 and ended on March 31, 2022. But the Ministry extended it to July 31, 2022, because most Ghanaians were yet to obtain their Ghana card.

The Ghana card is the only national identification card that can be used for the SIM registration.

The Communications Ministry say over 12 million Ghanaians have so far linked their Ghana cards to their SIM Cards.

Meanwhile, over 15.7 million Ghanaians currently have received their Ghana cards, the Executive Secretary of the National Identification Authority (NIA), Prof. Kenneth Agyemang Attafuah, disclosed to Citi FM on Thursday, July 21.

Prof. Attafuah said data available to him reveals that 16,969,034 persons have registered for the Ghana Card, with about 16,535,623 cards printed as of today.